His name is already attached to three of
underground rap
's seminal releases (
Lootpack
's
Soundpieces: Da Antidote!
,
Madvillain
Madvillainy
, and the first
Quasimoto
LP,
The Unseen
), so it can't come as a surprise that
Madlib
's return of
Lord Quas
takes its place right alongside them. When he debuted in 2000,
immediately became one of
hip-hop
's most bizarre characters, a helium-voiced, barely-teenage-sounding rapper capable of drawling the dozens like a
Cosby Kid
gone to seed or spouting more insane gibberish than a crackhead casualty. Helpfully, his obtuse material appeared over the most innovative new production style in
rap
-- crackly, bouncing productions with samples reflecting his obsessions with jazz-funk maestros like
Stanley Cowell
and
Grant Green
. While on
, he moved through the streets like a ghost,
Further Adventures
finds him a streetwise inhabitant of his Lost Gates neighborhood, with nearly every possible permutation of low-intensity inner-city conflict covered on tracks like
"Bullyshit"
(on bullies),
"Greenery"
(weed), and
"Bus Ride"
(panhandlers). It's a parody of urban life --
grew up in Oxnard, after all -- that's half-
Fat Albert
and half-
Sweet Sweetback
(the latter no accident, with the inclusion of vintage
Melvin Van Peebles
film dialogue on eight tracks, much of it ingeniously interwoven with
's new performances). Not that
could be described as linear -- these 26 tracks actually conceal close to 50 individual skits, grooves, sci-fi dialogue, educational records, and pot fantasies -- but
has formed a tighter frame around his productions than ever before. The sound, what's recognizable of it, expands on
's base of
soul
jazz-funk
, adding snatches of '80s
urban
and '70s
smooth soul
, the perfect bed for these tales. For the most part,
Quas
doesn't allow himself any nostalgia, but when he does, it becomes almost a little poignant, as on
"Rappcats, Pt. 3"
(where he shouts out to all his favorite old-school rappers) or the point on
"Bartender Say"
when the wisdom yields this little nugget: "What's the prettiest thing you ever seen?/ The sun pushing down, making things grow/The silence in the dawn when a car goes past." ~ John Bush